The Waters and Lucretia Carman House, located at 3811 Carman Drive in Lake Oswego, is historically significant for its status as one of the few extant Territorial-era houses in Oregon. It is believed to have been constructed ca. 1855. The home is also significant for its association with Waters Carman, who was among the first to settle in the Oswego area and who had a lasting impact on the pioneer community.
The dwelling was built between 1855 and 1858 on a parcel of land that was patented by Waters Carman under the authority of the Oregon Donation Land Law in 1866 (Bureau of Land Management [BLM] 2014: Accession Number OROCAA 040846). A neighbor, Charles W. Bryant, was reportedly hired to aid in the construction of the home (Portland Tribune 2010). An 1851 map from the General Land Office (GLO) indicates that there was a structure present within a plowed field on the Carman parcel at the time (GLO 1851). It is believed that a small shed housed the family until the main house was constructed in 1855. The shed was then incorporated into the house as a remodeled back room. It was said that the non-coursed rock walls lined the “hand dug basement” (Kolar and Morrison 1989). Carman’s original parcel was 326 acres, although the property now consists of a present-day tax lot of 1.25 acres (BLM 2014: Accession Number OROCAA 040846).
Waters Carman was born on September 20, 1811, in Luzerne, Pennsylvania, and died on September 29, 1878, in Clackamas County, Oregon (Early Oregonians Database Index 2014). An article published in the Portland Tribute and written by noted historian Stephen Dow Beckham helps elucidate the history of Waters Carman:
In 1832, [Waters] joined the Illinois Mounted Volunteers as a private in Captain Moffett’s Company to fight the Sac and Fox Indian tribes; Abraham Lincoln was among the soldiers engaged in this conflict. (Portland Tribune 2010)
Carman married twice while in Illinois and once in Oregon. He married his second wife, Lavina Carman (nee Buckman), in 1843. She died in 1846, a few years before his arrival in Oregon, but their daughter, Lavina Rachel, and a son (from his first marriage), Joel Carman, eventually joined Carman at the home near “Sucker Creek,” which is known today as Oswego Creek (Portland Tribune 2010). Some reports suggested that these two marriages produced four children, two of whom later joined Waters Carman in Oregon. The number of children Waters had from these marriages has not been verified but was mentioned in an article in The Sunday Oregonian in 1970 (The Sunday Oregonian 1970). Waters joined the California gold rush, quickly relocating to Oregon when his dreams of fortune were not realized. He was first officially enumerated in Oregon in the 1850 census. At the time, he resided in a boarding house with the Albert Durham family and he was enumerated as a laborer (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1850). It has been reported that for a time during this period Carman resided in Durham’s sawmill at the mouth of Sucker Creek (Portland Tribune 2010).
Waters Carman’s third wife, Lucretia Allyn Carman (nee Gurney), was the recent widow of Gustav Gurney, who drowned in the Columbia River shortly after the young couple’s arrival in the territory. Waters and Lucretia Waters were reportedly the first couple to be wed in Oswego in 1853 (The Sunday Oregonian 1970). The couple resided in a log cabin on the property until the Carman House was completed. A structure, likely the log cabin, is visible on an 1851 GLO map of the area (GLO 1851). The 1860 census showed Waters and Lucretia Carman living at the home with three of their children, George (born in 1854), Mary Lucretia (born 1856), and Henrietta J. (born 1859) (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1860). Waters and Lucretia reportedly had two more children, Helen Adelia (born 1860) and a son whose name is unknown (born in 1863) (Portland Tribune 2010). The 1870 U.S. census listed three of Waters and Lucretia’s children living at the house—Helen Adelia, Henrietta, and Mary—along with Lavina and Joel Carman from Waters’ previous marriages. There is no mention in the 1870 U.S. census of the Carmans’s son who was reportedly born in 1863 (Portland Tribune 2010; U.S. Bureau of the Census 1870). |